Edge Detection of Concrete Mesostructure Based on DIS Operator

Aggregate edge detection is the basis of creating concrete mesoscale model, which is applied to analyze concrete mesoscale characteristics. A concrete digital image edge detection method using DIS operator is presented in this paper. Mean filter, multi-scale filter, and Gaussian filter are compared on the effect of concrete image noise reduction. Based on the result, Gaussian filter is the most optimum method to reduce image noise and remain aggregate edge distinct. Sobel operator, Laplacian operator, and DIS operator are applied respectively to detect the aggregate edge on Gaussian filter processed images. Based on the experiment, DIS operator outperforms other two operators in the veracity and integrity of edge detection. It is concluded that using Gaussian filter and DIS operator for edge segmentation can provide geometrical models for FEM analysis

Delivering hydrophilic and hydrophobic chemotherapeutics simultaneously by magnetic mesoporous silica nanoparticles to inhibit cancer cells

Using nanoparticles to deliver chemotherapeutics offers new opportunities for cancer therapy, but challenges still remain when they are used for the delivery of multiple drugs, especially for the synchronous delivery of hydrophilic and hydrophobic drugs in combination therapies. In this paper, we developed an approach to deliver hydrophilic–hydrophobic anticancer drug pairs by employing magnetic mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MMSNs). We prepared 50 nm-sized MMSNs with uniform pore size and evaluated their capability for the loading of two combinations of chemotherapeutics, namely doxorubicin–paclitaxel and doxorubicin–rapamycin, by means of sequential adsorption from the aqueous solution of doxorubicin and nonaqueous solutions of paclitaxel or rapamycin. Experimental results showed that the present strategy successfully realized the co-loading of hydrophilic and hydrophobic drugs with high-loading content and widely tunable ratio range. We elaborate on the theory behind the molecular interaction between the silica hydroxyl groups and drug molecules, which underlie the controllable loading, and the subsequent release of the drug pairs. Then we demonstrate that the multidrug-loaded MMSNs could be easily internalized by A549 human pulmonary adenocarcinoma cells, and produce enhanced tumor cell apoptosis and growth inhibition as compared to single-drug loaded MMSNs. Our study thus realized simultaneous and dose-tunable delivery of hydrophilic and hydrophobic drugs, which were endowed with improved anticancer efficacy. This strategy could be readily extended to other chemotherapeutic combinations and might have clinically translatable significance

Numerical simulation on the influence of stirrups during electrochemical repair

Stirrup in the concrete structure has noteworthy effect on the electrochemical chloride removal (ECR), which was always ignored in the numerical simulation. Taking the impact of stirrup into consideration has disadvantages on improving the accurate of modeling results. In this paper, a three dimensional (3D) numerical model considering the impact of stirrup on ECR treatment was established, and an experiment was numerically studied to explore the validity of the model. The difference between the residual chloride concentration of simulation and experiment in most region of the concrete structure is within ± 25%. Based on this model, the effect of stirrups on ECR’s efficiency were explored. The results of numerical model shows that the stirrup has shielding effect on the chloride migration of the region between the stirrups, while in the region near the stirrup, it has positive on the chloride removal. TRANSLATE with x English Arabic Hebrew Polish Bulgarian Hindi Portuguese Catalan Hmong Daw Romanian Chinese Simplified Hungarian Russian Chinese Traditional Indonesian Slovak Czech Italian Slovenian Danish Japanese Spanish Dutch Klingon Swedish English Korean Thai Estonian Latvian Turkish Finnish Lithuanian Ukrainian French Malay Urdu German Maltese Vietnamese Greek Norwegian Welsh Haitian Creole Persian TRANSLATE with COPY THE URL BELOW Back EMBED THE SNIPPET BELOW IN YOUR SITE Enable collaborative features and customize widget: Bing Webmaster Portal Back TRANSLATE with x English Arabic Hebrew Polish Bulgarian Hindi Portuguese Catalan Hmong Daw Romanian Chinese Simplified Hungarian Russian Chinese Traditional Indonesian Slovak Czech Italian Slovenian Danish Japanese Spanish Dutch Klingon Swedish English Korean Thai Estonian Latvian Turkish Finnish Lithuanian Ukrainian French Malay Urdu German Maltese Vietnamese Greek Norwegian Welsh Haitian Creole Persian TRANSLATE with COPY THE URL BELOW Back EMBED THE SNIPPET BELOW IN YOUR SITE Enable collaborative features and customize widget: Bing Webmaster Portal Bac

Efficiency of electrochemical chloride removal from concrete at different environmental temperatures

Electrochemical chloride removal (ECR) is an effective and curative method to treat existed reinforced concrete structures about to suffer or already suffering from chloride attack, however, its application is still limited due to its side effect and efficiency, including the velocity and maximum capacity of chloride removal. This paper presents a temperature related numerical transport model to study the effect of temperature on efficiency of electrochemical chloride removal from concrete. Based on Fick’s law and Nernst-Planck equation with Gauss’ Law, temperature effect, chloride binding, multi-species coupling, electrochemical reactions were taken into account in this model. Temperature effect was considered on diffusion coefficient, chloride binding, ions migration capacity as well as electrolyte concentration. The model was validated by the comparison between the calculated results and experimental data. The results indicate that temperature dose have a considerable influence on electrochemical chloride removal and controlling temperature during treatment is a practical method to improve the electrochemical chloride removal when applied current density is not amplified

Geochemistry and geochronology of dolerite dykes from the Daba and Dongbo peridotite massifs, SW Tibet: Insights into the style of mantle melting at the onset of Neo-Tethyan subduction

This study reports compositional and whole-rock Sr-Nd isotope data as well as zircon U-Pb geochronological data on dolerite dikes from the Daba and Dongbo ultramafic massifs, southwest Yarlung-Zangbo Suture Zone (YZSZ), Tibet. The 120.6 \ub1 1.6 Ma dolerite dikes from the Daba peridotite exhibit normal mid-ocean ridge basalt (N-MORB)-type normalized mutli-element patterns [(La/Yb)N = 0.43-0.72] with noticeable negative Nb and Th anomalies. They have high initial 87Sr/8624 Sr ratios (87Sr/8625 Sr(i) = 0.70720-0.70788) and high \u3b5Nd(t) values (+7.4 to +7.9). The 125.4 \ub1 1.8 Ma dolerite intrusions within the Dongbo peridotite show N-MORB\u2012type trace element profiles [(La/Yb)N = 0.65-0.84] characterized by apparent negative anomalies in Nb and Th, and mild negative anomalies in Ti (\ub1 Y). They also have high 87Sr/8629 Sr(i) ratios (0.70611-0.70679) and elevated \u3b5Nd(t) values (+7.8 to +8.2). Semi-quantitative La/Yb vs. Dy/Yb modeling demonstrates that the parental magmas of the investigated dolerite dikes derived from more than 20% (cumulative) melting of a (broad) mantle source region that had a spinel-bearing N-MORB\u2013like lherzolitic composition. Our geochemical and isotopic data indicate that the composition of the inferred mantle source was influenced by minor input of subducted crustal material. The petrogenesis of the Daba and Dongbo massifs could be linked to upwelling of an asthenospheric source that caused continental rift and subsequent seafloor spreading, followed by subduction initiation adjacent to a passive margin during the early Cretaceous (~130-120 Ma). Our study provides a more detailed, and perhaps more elegant, hypothesis for the tectono-magmatic evolution of the southwestern YZSZ "ophiolitic" peridotites after their accretion beneath a Neo-Tethyan marginal basin

Pulmonary Cryptococcosis Diagnosed by Metagenomic Next-Generation Sequencing in a Young Patient With Normal Immune Function: A Case Report

BackgroundPulmonary cryptococcosis (PC) is a serious opportunistic fungal infection that usually occurs in immunocompromised patients. This disease is often difficult to diagnose in time due to its clinical manifestations and radiological feature similar to other pulmonary infections, as well as the low sensitivity of conventional diagnostic methods. Cryptococcosis in immune-competent patients is rare.Case PresentationHere we report a case of PC in an immune-competent patient. Tuberculosis was suspected according to radiological features due to the positive T-lymphocyte spot test and pure protein derivative skin test. To further detect the pathogen, bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) was collected for metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS). Cryptococcus neoformans (one specific read) was identified by mNGS, indicating the PC of this patient. The following BALF culture and cryptococcal antigen lateral flow assay (CrAg-LFA) test also showed Cryptococcus infection, confirming the mNGS detection. Voriconazole (0.4 g daily) was given orally according to the subsequent susceptibility results. After seven months of treatment, the patient's condition improved.ConclusionMetagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) is a better diagnostic tool to help clinicians distinguish pulmonary cryptococcosis from other atypical pulmonary infections

A Multi-Robot Cooperation Framework for Sewing Personalized Stent Grafts

This paper presents a multi-robot system for manufacturing personalized medical stent grafts. The proposed system adopts a modular design, which includes: a (personalized) mandrel module, a bimanual sewing module, and a vision module. The mandrel module incorporates the personalized geometry of patients, while the bimanual sewing module adopts a learning-by-demonstration approach to transfer human hand-sewing skills to the robots. The human demonstrations were firstly observed by the vision module and then encoded using a statistical model to generate the reference motion trajectories. During autonomous robot sewing, the vision module plays the role of coordinating multi-robot collaboration. Experiment results show that the robots can adapt to generalized stent designs. The proposed system can also be used for other manipulation tasks, especially for flexible production of customized products and where bimanual or multi-robot cooperation is required.Comment: 10 pages, 12 figures, accepted by IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, Key words: modularity, medical device customization, multi-robot system, robot learning, visual servoing, robot sewin

Coexistence of MORB- and OIB-like dolerite intrusions in the Purang ultramafic massif, SW Tibet: a paradigm of plume-influenced MOR-type magmatism prior to subduction initiation in the Neo-Tethyan lithospheric mantle

The Yarlung Zangbo Suture Zone (YZSZ) of South Tibet is divided by the Zhongba-Zhada terrane into two subparallel ophiolitic belts in its western end. The peridotite massifs of the southern belt tectonically overlie the Tethyan Himalaya sequence. The Purang peridotite body in this belt is intruded by two groups of dolerite dikes, providing significant compositional, geochronological, and isotopic information about the melting history of the Neo-Tethyan mantle. U-Pb ages of zircons separated from dolerites show that peridotites of West Purang were intruded by an early generation of dikes at 138.5 \ub1 2.0 Ma (Valanginian). These dolerites show ocean island basalt (OIB)-type normalized multi-elemental profiles and Sr-Nd isotopic signatures [(La/Yb)N = 13\u201316], high initial 87Sr/86Sr ratios (0.70598\u20130.70765), and low \u3b5Nd(t) values (\u20132.6 to \u20132.3). Zircons separated from this group of dolerites have slightly radiogenic \u3b5Hf(t) values (+2.6 to +4.6). The next generation of dolerite dikes intruded the East Purang peridotites between 124.5 \ub1 2.5 Ma and 124.4 \ub1 3.2 Ma (Aptian). These East Purang dolerites show normal mid-ocean ridge basalt (N-MORB)-type normalized multi-element patterns [(La/Yb)N = 0.6\u20130.9] with noticeable negative Nb and Th (\ub1Ti) anomalies, and have high 87Sr/86Sr(i) (0.70295\u20130.70618) and high \u3b5Nd(t) values (+7.7 to +9.2). Zircons separated from the East Purang dolerites show strongly radiogenic \u3b5Hf(t) values (+3.5 to +17.0). Semiquantitative geochemical modeling demonstrates that the parental magmas of West Purang dolerites were generated from 5%\u201310% polybaric partial melting of a deep-seated juvenile asthenospheric source enriched by plume-type components. In contrast, the parental melts of East Purang dolerites were derived from more than 20% melting of a juvenile spinel-bearing MORBtype mantle source that was modified by subduction-related melts/fluids to a minor extent. A possible tectono-magmatic model for the petrogenesis of the Purang ophiolitic massif could be linked to incipient continental rifting and subsequent oceanic seafloor spreading associated with decompression upwelling of an asthenospheric source contaminated by plume-type components. This plume-proximal seafloor spreading-system was succeeded by the initiation of Neo-Tethyan intra-oceanic subduction close to the active continental margin of Eurasia during the Early Cretaceous

An unusually powerful mode of low-frequency sound interference due to defective hair bundles of the auditory outer hair cells

International audienceA detrimental perceptive consequence of damaged auditory sen-sory hair cells consists in a pronounced masking effect exerted by low-frequency sounds, thought to occur when auditory threshold elevation substantially exceeds 40 dB. Here, we identified the submembrane scaffold protein Nherf1 as a hair-bundle component of the differentiating outer hair cells (OHCs). Nherf1 −/− mice dis-played OHC hair-bundle shape anomalies in the mid and basal co-chlea, normally tuned to mid-and high-frequency tones, and mild (22–35 dB) hearing-threshold elevations restricted to midhigh sound frequencies. This mild decrease in hearing sensitivity was, however, discordant with almost nonresponding OHCs at the co-chlear base as assessed by distortion-product otoacoustic emissions and cochlear microphonic potentials. Moreover, unlike wild-type mice, responses of Nherf1 −/− mice to high-frequency (20–40 kHz